Holding Steady:
The Resurgence of Bob Dylan Part III*
Burning Shore Reviews, July 2007
By Rob Woodard
Modern Times
An Album Bob Dylan
Columbia Records
I am sitting in my apartment listening to MODERN TIMES, the latest Bob Dylan album, for the fifth time in the last two days. I think I like it. Actually, I know I like it, but the question is how much do I like it, which is actually turning out to be a more difficult to answer than I would have thought it to be a couple of listens back. Before I go any further I should probably state that I am a huge Bob Dylan fan. Actually I'm more than a fan: I'm a true believer: I expect more than entertainment or even "good" art from the man: I demand nothing less than revelation every time I put on one of his albums, no matter how many times I have heard it before. What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that approaching a new Bob Dylan album is for me a serious business not to be rushed even a little bit.
That stated, I think I'm coming to some conclusions about this work. First off, it's a beautiful sounding album, a smoky late night medium-flame spin thru some of America's oldest and most telling musical forms; it's the kind of album that almost demands to be listened to alone on a sultry summer night while one sips from a glass of top-flight red wine or a tumbler of Kentucky's finest, or while driving thru the darkness on some empty moonlit rural road. I can also say that there's more than a little bit of substance both backing up and driving this rich aural front. Bob Dylan has spent a lifetime understanding, mastering, and recreating American music--and this album in a sense is a culmination of this process; he effortlessly moves to and from and combines the deepest blues with ageless folk and ballad traditions with a success that few others could even approach let alone match. And it's in these broad respects this album that album most obviously shines. It's when one examines the songs themselves that things get more complicated, difficult, rewarding, and at times frustrating.
As with TIME OUT MIND and LOVE AND THEFT, the previous two albums that (thus far) make up Bob Dylan's late-career resurgence, MODERN TIMES is dominated by themes of love, lust, loss, religious truth, death, and finally an uneasy acceptance of all these epic aspects of life. And as is also the case with these previous albums, MODERN TIMES explores these topics mostly thru a series of jumpy blues romps and huge ballads. The former is represented four tracks, "Thunder on The Mountain," "Rollin' and Tumblin'," "Someday Baby," and "The Levee's Gonna Break," which may or may not be about the recent flooding of New Orleans. All of these songs are at the very least interesting, and their best moments truly wonderful. However, with the exception of "Rollin' and Tumblin'," and extensive and brilliant rewrite of the Muddy Water's classic of the same name, all seem to be missing something, a deeper riff, a more powerful performance, or a classic Dylan turn of phrase that would make the song truly satisfying instead of merely "good." Part of the problem with all these up-tempo tracks is that the album's general sound blunts their power. The warm woody tone that saturates everything does not exactly lend itself to rocking out; and one will search in vein if they're hoping to find anything that roars out of the speakers and commands the attention of, say, LOVE AND THEFT'S "Lonely Day Blues" or "Summer Days."
The album's basic sound does work extremely well with its ballads, however. The problem here, though, is that with one very notable exception, none of these songs are up to the level of Dylan's best work. Not that they're particularly weak eitherÑfor the most part they're just "solid," which for an artist of Dylan's caliber has to be considered a fairly damning statement. As mentioned, though, there's one major exception among these tunes, a piano-based track called "Workingman's Blues #2." In this touching lament for the plight of those who actually make this world function, Dylan comes about as close to topical songwriting as he has in many years, as witnessed by lines such as "They say low wages are reality if we want to compete abroad." This is no simple labor fight song, however: it's actually a complex poem to the meaning of work and how it shapes our lives. It is also among the best songs Bob Dylan has ever written.
As already mentioned, though, there is just something missing here, something that would make this album rise to the level of Dylan's more important work. Still, it's at worst an interesting release that occasionally manages to be much more, which probably makes it a must for Dylan devotees and perhaps a decent starting point for those who wish to begin figuring out what this man and his music are all about.
*This review was originally written for another venue roughly one year ago. Ultimately it was turned down by these publishers. We at Burning Shore Press feel that it is a worthwhile work that deserves to see the light of day. Thus we have decided to put it into "print." Better late than never, we say.
ROB WOODARD is the author of the novels Heaping Stones (2005, Burning Shore Press) and What Love Is (to be published by Burning Shore Press in the fall/winter of 2007). In the 2008 Burning Shore Press will be bringing out King of Long Beach, his first volume of poetry. He lives in Long Beach, California. Contact:
